Sunday, March 8, 2015

Time

Hawaiians divided the year into two seasons – Kau (Summer – when it was dry and hot; beginning in May when Makaliʻi (Pleiades) set at sunrise;) and Hoʻoilo (Winter season when it was rainy and chilly; beginning in October.) Months were measured not by the number of days, but were based on the phases of the moon - each beginning with the appearance of a new moon and lasting until the appearance of the next new moon.

It wasn’t until the Westerners arrived that clocks and watches were used to measure passage of time during the day. In 1883, the US railroad industry divided the continental US into five (later four) time zones, establishing official time zones with a set standard time within each zone. It was not until 1918 that an Act of Congress set standard time all over the US; that act also provided for nationwide daylight saving time from March through October.

About Me

I am a lifetime resident of Hawai`i. I’ve been in the private sector for 30-years, 2-years in County Administration and 4 1/2-years in State Administration. Our firm, Ho`okuleana LLC, is a planning and consulting firm assisting property owners with land use planning efforts, including environmental review, entitlement process, permitting, community outreach, etc.
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About the historical posts … in an effort to provide brief background summaries of various people, places and events in Hawaiʻi, I make informal compilations from a variety of sources. These are not intended to be technical reference documents; rather they are assemblages of information and images from various sources. In many cases, specific citations and attributions are often omitted. The images and text in various posts are from various sources and are presented for personal, non-commercial and/or educational purposes.